


For a Single Moment

by FromAnonymousToZ



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Why would he continue on if this existence is torture?, Witches, perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 17:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18370721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAnonymousToZ/pseuds/FromAnonymousToZ
Summary: The girl whimpered, holding the tawny colored tabby close to her chest as the bitter cold wind slinked through the trees, frosting the ground. She crouched on the ground, the raps of dead leaves whipping through the air, the cold ground cuts her knees and article of crimson stains the hem of her blue dress purple. Her wide brown eyes stare up at the dark creature who stood just on the other side of the clearing. The cat mewls in her arms, it’s ears flattening as it’s fur grows damp in places from the storm.





	For a Single Moment

The girl whimpered, holding the tawny colored tabby close to her chest as the bitter cold wind slinked through the trees, frosting the ground. She crouched on the ground, the raps of dead leaves whipping through the air, the cold ground cuts her knees and article of crimson stains the hem of her blue dress purple. Her wide brown eyes stare up at the dark creature who stood just on the other side of the clearing. The cat mewls in her arms, it’s ears flattening as it’s fur grows damp in places from the storm.

A young witch in the making. One whose power had the Beast had felt her presence ripple through the land and had come to judge her before she outgrew him in magical prowess. It was best to take care of troublesome witches while they were young and train potentially helpful witches now. To instill the fear of the Beast in them. 

This one was strange… an observation magic dwelt within her. the closer she came to a living being the more she knew of them. Then when she finally came into contact with her target for the brief moment of contact she knew all, she felt all, in that one moment she might as well be her target themselves. 

A powerful ally, but a double edged sword nonetheless. Her power had been to much for her, it overwhelmed her with the knowledge. Fleeing both the knowledge and persecution she had found herself in his woods. So now it was just the three of them, the cat the girl and him. He stood just close enough not to overwhelm her but close enough that she could feel him and in a dim, half formed way know him as he was. 

At the corner of her mind she could feel the thousands of souls screaming in pain, she could feel scorching fire and frozen ice. And at the very edge of it all she could feel the seeping hunger. Just knowing the wisps of knowledge of these lives made her head spin, pain racing through her in phantom sympathy for the wretched creature that stands across from the young witch.

Sheets of cold rain fall between them, a cold light from the dark lantern which swings slowly on a dark branching antler. Her voice fills the empty air before him. 

“How do you live like this?” She clutches the cat closer and the creatures head tilts as if in confusion.

“Elaborate.” The deep voice rings out filling the air and her skull.

“So hungry… so lonely so…. cold” She shivers as she speaks. He pauses deliberating his words.

“It is all I have ever known.”

“But…. but it’s such a painful existence, so lonely.”

“It is not all that painful, hungry perhaps, but there are ways to sate that hunger. It is not all that lonely, I have the trees and the stars, I have my song.”

“Don’t you feel pointless though, only wandering to eat and sing?”

“I need not a purpose, I was not made to serve mortals. I am not keeper of death or guardian of the skies. Where I step there is ground, where I breath there is air, where I go there is winter even if there was nothing before. I am because I chose to be, I sing because I chose to keep what is beneath the ice asleep, I walk because I choose to make something from nothing, I chose why I am here and if I am here at all. I need no purpose more than that.”

“But why though…”

“I exist because I chose to. I made myself from nothing with no helping hand this is what I chose for myself.”

“Why do you not at least seek worship, or easy food, a church somewhere that you would have an abundance of food, instead you hunt in a way that puts your very life on the line.”

“A church would make me a god among the people, I do not wish to be their god, for that would make me something I am not, and I chose this path and will not give it up for the wishes of some mortal.”

“How-“

“My My you have quite a few questions don’t you.”

“I just want to know why you chose this.”

“Well then…” light glinted eerily off the lantern as a dark head cocked, two beacon eyes shivering in a wooden skull. “Come and find out.”

Rising to her feet the girl took a shaken step forward, with each step the buzz of knowing the lives of all these souls increased tenfold, until finally a small hand came up and reached out, barely reaching his midsection, the small hand pressing against the coarse fur of the cloak around his shoulders that fell down past his legs. 

And in that brief fleeting moment she knew the Beast.

She knew all he was, all he had ever been and all he would ever be. In that single moment she felt a vicious snapping hunger coil in her belly. She could feel the forest around them, she heard every creak of the trees and every whisper of the wind. In her chest swirled a ravenous frost and in her soul burned an insatiable flame. She could feel the roots that twisted and twirled for miles beneath the ground. She could taste the frozen air and the slick viscous oil on her tongue. She could smell the rotting leaves and the sweet dew flower’s nectar, she could hear the wing beats of a nightingale as it lit from a tree miles away. She could hear the twinkling stars and could hear a song rumbling through the earth and up through her mouth. She could feel wooden joints creaking, and the slick oil which dropped from the trees around them. She could taste the thick shag cloak inches from her face and could hear each individual snowflake as it fell. She could hear a girl and a boy being called to supper she could hear shutters closing I her village. She knew why the wolves howled at the moon and she knew the thrill of the hunt that a panther feels when it entraps it’s prey. She could feel the vibrations of a spider’s web and could hear the delicate wing beats of a fly. She could feel the moon light on them and she could hear all the secrets the wind would ever know. She knew every song and rhyme of countless names, she could gaze upon anyone and know their face, she could take on any skin and walk around in it. And in that one moment, fleeting and brief...

She was the Beast.

As her body fell back to the carpet of leaves that would serve as her final resting place the dark creature gazed down at her she found she knew why he continued on like this.

Because for as terrible and ugly and beautiful it was for him.

It really wasn’t all that bad for him.

 


End file.
